“Can machines think?”
This was the question posed by British logician and computer pioneer Alan Turing. It’s the question that led to the study and theory of artificial intelligence as we know it today.
It’s a thought-provoking question for kids to consider too. Artificial intelligence or AI for kids is an important topic since it will play a big part in their lives. Even now, new technology is being integrated into our children’s lives rapidly. Learning about and engaging with AI gives them the power to create the future.
Find out more about getting started with AI for kids.
- What is AI for Kids?
- What are Some Examples of AI for Kids?
- Benefits Of AI For Kids
- How Can Kids Learn About AI?
- AI is the Future
What is AI for kids?
AI for kids is a way for kids to learn about and experience artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is the development of computer systems to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. This includes reading, writing, speaking, seeing, and understanding.
More than just executing a set of steps, humans also have the capability to learn. This is what makes AI especially unique. AI learns by understanding the learning process.
Coding, machine learning, and data science are also connected to AI. Paired with the ability to consume large amounts of data, AI is able to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs, and perform human-like tasks. The process of creating AI involves programming, training, and testing AI machines.
Artificial intelligence software is created using coding languages. So, working with and understanding AI relies on a foundation of learning how to code. In our coding classes for kids, we start students in middle school and high school with coding in Python. Python is one of the more popular languages to code AI and its simple syntax makes it easy for kids to learn.
What are the 3 types of AI?
- Artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) – AI that performs a single or a narrow set of tasks.
- Artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI that can replicate human tasks.
- Artificial superintelligence (ASI) – AI that can perform tasks beyond human capabilities.
Branches of artificial intelligence
- Computer vision.
- Fuzzy Logic.
- Expert systems.
- Robotics.
- Machine learning.
- Neural networks/deep learning.
- Natural language processing.
What are Some Examples of AI for Kids?
Anything featuring artificial intelligence sounds like it should be tucked away in a tech laboratory far away. In reality, kids interact with AI every day without realizing it.
AI has become a part of daily life and helps us complete a number of essential tasks.
Here are some AI examples kids might be familiar with:
- Maps and navigation
- Text Editors or Autocorrect
- Search and Recommendation Algorithms
- Video games
- Facial recognition
- Alexa, Smart assistants
- Netflix recommendations
ChatGPT is a shiny new example of AI technology. It’s a program that was trained to interact in a conversational way. It’s sophisticated enough to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. You can ask ChatGPT to write an essay or Twitter post for you. You can even ask it to write code or find answers to coding problems.
AI is constantly developing. Many tasks considered “intelligent” are removed from the definition of AI as they become routine or mainstream.
While AI is still evolving and admittedly has limitations, it’s the future of technology. It will be commonplace as our kids grow up and being familiar with AI will make them tech literate.
Benefits Of AI For Kids
Understanding AI can change a child’s interactions with the world around them. There are many benefits to AI and learning about AI for kids that include:
Improved Education
AI can help kids learn and improve their education overall. It’s being used in learning games and educational apps. AI that helps with homework or finds the right pace for teaching your child? It’s already out there. In addition, studying AI and related topics like coding and machine learning teaches computational thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking, and more.
Recommended: 26 Reasons Learning to Code Benefits Your Child
Tech Literacy
Our kids need the ability to use, manage, and assess technology safely, effectively, and responsibly. Learning about AI can also make kids more interested in technology, and other STEM topics. Being familiar with AI also makes it feel less daunting to get involved with emerging technologies and new ideas.
Career Opportunities
There are millions of jobs projected to go unfilled without more education in STEM. These jobs will encompass those in AI. There will be many more opportunities open to students who learn coding and AI. Industries like finance and healthcare are developing and using AI to solve big problems even now. As a result, the career opportunities in AI are aplenty and your child may even hold a job that doesn’t exist today.
How Can Kids Learn About AI?
There are a lot of great ways for kids to learn about AI. Depending on your child’s age and best learning style, choose one of these ways to learn about AI.
AI Classes for Kids
These classes specifically teach kids about AI concepts, but to have a solid foundation, consider starting with coding classes for kids.
Once your child is comfortable, add or move onto an AI course. There are options for live instructors or self-paced classes.
Outschool
Outschool has AI class options for ages 6-18. Topics range from foundation knowledge to building neural networks.
Create & Learn
Create & Learn offers classes for grades 4-7 to understand what AI can and can not do, and why. Kids learn how AI works in the real world and build their own AI system.
AI Tools For Kids
RAISE AI Playground By MIT Media Lab
MIT RAISE is a new initiative to innovate learning and education with AI. In the AI Playground, kids can use Scratch to build AI projects. They also have daily AI curriculum for students and teachers.
Cognimates
Uses Scratch with custom block extensions that use your camera and microphone to capture photos and speech. Kids can practice building games, programming robots, and training AI models. It’s easy to get started and there are simple projects and tutorials for kids with no experience.
Tensorflow Playground
Kids can learn and play with neural networks right in their browser. Tensorflow Playground uses a visual representation of the data, features, layers, and output. For kids learning about AI, this is a great sandbox to test what they’ve learned.
Teachable Machine
With Teachable Machine, kids can train a computer to recognize their own images, sounds, & poses. It’s a fast and easy way to create machine learning models and no expertise or coding required. There are a few tutorials for students and lesson plans for parents and teachers.
Educational Platforms to Learn AI
AI Experiments with Google
AI Experiments is a showcase for simple AI experiments and kids can even submit their own. It makes it easier to start exploring machine learning. There are experiments on writing, learning, drawing, music, and more!
AI 4 children
AI 4 Children teaches AI and machine learning to kids using Scratch. They can try prototypes that combine ScratchX with machine learning functions.
Machine learning for kids
You will teach a computer to play a game on this site. Kids can collect examples, train the computer to recognize the examples, then make a game using Scratch. There are examples of pre-trained models and step-by-step tutorials for kids to create their own.
Teach AI with Games
Quick Draw
This game is similar to Pictionary, but the computer is guessing. Kids will draw and a neural network tries to guess what they’re drawing. They can also help teach this model by adding your artwork to the world’s largest doodling data set.
Shadow Art
Kids can try their hands at shadow puppetry with a little help from AI. They’ll create a shadow puppet for the camera to represent their Zodiac sign.
Emoji Scavenger Hunt
In this game, kids have to locate the emoji shown to them in the real world with their phone’s camera. A neural network will try to guess what it’s seeing.
FreddieMeter
Kids can try to sing like Freddie Mercury in the karaoke-style game. AI-powered singing challenge to find out how close your timbre, pitch, and melody are to Freddie’s.
AI is the Future
The potential of AI is only beginning to surface. It’s a field that is growing rapidly and has applications to many real-life situations.
If artificial intelligence interests your child, learning to code is a great first step. Take a coding class for kids to build a foundation in computational thinking and your child will be well-prepared to learn AI.
Today’s kids are interacting with AI every day, so why wouldn’t they be the ones to make the next big breakthrough?
